Jude chapter one and verse 12. These, Jude is speaking about,
Jude the apostle is speaking about these ungodly men who had
made their way into the church. He said, these are spots in your
feasts of charity. when they feast with you, feeding
themselves without fear. clouds they are, without water,
carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth, without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of
the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom
is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading
to us also. What is clear from these verses
before us today is that these false teachers were present amongst
the believers. The believers to whom Jude was
writing had in their midst, had participating actively in their
fellowship meetings and in their love feasts, the apostle calls
them here, feasts of charity, perhaps similar to what the Lord
was speaking about in our reading today in Luke chapter 14. But their present in these love
feasts were these false teachers. This, despite the fact that Jude
tells us these same men, listen, perverted the doctrine of God's
grace and denied the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we might wonder how this
state of affairs has arisen. How is it that these men, believing
as they do, professing as they do, yet find themselves welcome
participants at these love feasts and in the fellowship of the
Lord's people. What we can tell is that their
presence here has not been without subtlety and deception on the
part of these ungodly men. And Jude tells us that they have
crept in unawares. So let us give these believers
in the early church some latitude and let us say that they faced
a new threat, they faced a new phenomenon. that another front
had opened up in the battle for the Gospel. And let us say that
these enemies had realised that they could not defeat the Gospel
by persecuting it out of existence. They had tried to do that in
the early days of the apostles, but now they had to resort to
the more devious ways of corrupting the truth and disrupting the
faith and the testimony of these young believers. And this, I
think, is a lesson. It tells us that the church has
always had its enemies whose desire it has been to damage
and disrupt the kingdom of God. And towards the end of the apostolic
age, we find all the apostles warning against the rise of wicked
men amongst the congregations of the Lord's people. Indeed,
the Lord himself tells us that many false prophets are gone
out into the world. And Peter says in 2 Peter 2 verse
1, there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring
in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them." This
is exactly what Judah's been talking about, about these men
who had crept in unawares, perverted the doctrine of God's grace,
and denied the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, denying
the Lord that bought them. But that's not the worst of it.
Peter goes on to say, and many shall follow their pernicious
ways, their devious ways, their false doctrine. Many shall follow
their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall
be evil spoken of. This is while the disciples,
this is while the Lord's apostles are still alive. This is still
in the apostolic days. And the way of truth is the doctrine
of sovereign grace. That's the way of truth. Paul
says, likewise, in the latter times, some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. That's not like, I don't know,
the evil angels or the evil spirits that are coming in and assaulting
the minds of believers with wrong impressions. He's talking about
false prophets. He's talking about the seducing
spirits of false teachers. Teachers who deny the doctrine
of sovereign grace. Teachers who deny the efficacy
of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Teachers who pervert
the doctrine of God's grace to make it depending or dependent
on the will and the works of the sinner. Many false prophets
are going out into the world, and this is those whom the Lord
and his disciples are speaking about. And I'm telling you this
not to scare the Lord's sheep or imply that any of the true
people of God can lose their salvation, because I trust we
understand that this work of grace is a completed work, and
that once saved, always saved. Once the Lord's people, never
to be lost. A true believer can never lose
their salvation. I don't tell you this to frighten
you, but I tell you this to stress what Jude is saying here, that
ungodly professors will make their way into the church of
Christ, and we should not be surprised when it occurs, nor
naive to think that it won't. Jude instructed those to whom
he is writing to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered
to the saints. That means that we stand on this
hill, that means that we We take to the trenches, we fight for
this cause. It means that the doctrine of
grace, it means that the work of Christ is something that we
learn and know and love and defend and we do not give up. This faith
is the faith of Christ. The faith of which he is the
author and finisher. The faith of which he is the
object faith that believes Christ died for our sins according to
the scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again the third
day according to the scriptures. You know that little phrase in
there according to the scriptures is so important because there
are many many, I don't want to start quoting numbers, there
are many many who say they believe Christ died for our sins. But
we say Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
according to the testimony of the Word of God. Our faith is
that faith which accords with the whole of Scripture. We say
with Isaiah in chapter 8, verse 20, to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. And that Old Testament gospel
preacher, Isaiah, merges his message well with Jude's here
today. Jude gives us four powerful descriptions
to understand these graceless men are in the church fellowship. He likens them to clouds without
water, trees without fruit, raging foaming waves and wandering stars. And these metaphors emphasise
how useless and hopeless every so-called gospel is that is not
according to the scripture. And what I'm going to do today
is take these four headings that Jude gives us and just touch
lightly on each one of them to show how useless and hopeless
and empty these men were by the descriptions that Jude gives. The first one Jude says is that
they are clouds without water. Now just as I was beginning to
preach there, I heard the rain banging against the window of
this little room. And living in the UK, we like
to think that we know a thing or two about clouds. The first thing that we know
about clouds is that there are lots of them. There are lots
in variety and there are lots in quantity. And that reminds
us that there are a lot of false teachers, both in quantity and
in variety. There are lots of false teachers
and they come at us from every side. That is why it is so necessary
to know the truth. You cannot expect to know every
error that you are going to be confronted with, but you don't
have to know every error as long as you know what is true and
you can test every new idea against what you have been taught and
what you know to be true from the Word of God. Another thing that we know about
clouds here in the UK is that they tend to make things dark. I've got a couple of lights on
here in my little room in order to brighten up, even though it's
the middle of the day. Why? Because the clouds make
it dark. And false teachers make things
dark and obscure. That's a feature of cloud cover. They confuse things because they
hide the truth. Just as the clouds hide the sun,
the clouds hide the light. So false teachers, these clouds,
like clouds without water, it says. They're like clouds because
they make things dark. It's what they're there to do.
It's what false teachers do. But let me say this, I'm thinking
about this from the UK. That's not Jude's point at all.
He wasn't in the UK. And his point is that in Israel,
rainfall and water is at a period, sorry, is at a premium. I actually
looked it up because I thought I better not kid these people
on. Israel gets about, today, Israel gets about a third of
the rainfall that the UK gets. And it gets it all in the space
of a couple of months. We can get rain at any time of
the year. They get it in a concentrated
period and they get about a third of what we get here in the UK.
The point that Jude is making is this, These are clouds without
water. They bring a false hope because
they don't have any moisture in them. Clouds without water
bring no refreshing showers and likewise there was no blessing
in the ministry of these men. They were barren and empty. And sure, they made things dark
and obscure, so that is not lost. And sure, they brought no light
to bear on the Scriptures, that's not lost either. But they were
empty of all spiritual refreshment. They gave neither comfort nor
assistance to the parched, dry souls of the Lord's people. These false teachers pretended
to possess knowledge of the gospel, when in reality they had none
at all, and were in fact a great disappointment. When rain fails to come in a
dry land, the effect of that is devastating. And Israel knew
long periods of drought and the consequential famine in Old Testament
times. We can think about Elijah, for
example, and the times when for years there was no rain. It just didn't come, and all
the wells dried up, and all the streams dried up, and there was
a time of great distress and hardship. And just as life cannot
exist without water, so no spiritual life can flourish under clouds
without water. What Jude does tell us about
these men is that they were blown about by every wind of change.
They had nothing to offer a weary soul because they were empty
in their own souls. And the contrast is also striking
because true preaching, faithful preaching and the frequent hearing
of Christ preached and the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of
grace, hearing that preached is what refreshes the church.
Ezekiel, the Old Testament prophet, says in chapter 34, he's speaking
about what the Lord is going to do for his people. Chapter
34 of Ezekiel, verse 25, it says, covenant of peace. We talk about
this all the time. This is the gospel. This is the
gospel of sovereign grace. The fact that God makes with
his people a covenant of peace. And here's how he describes that
covenant of peace. I will make them and the places
round about my hill, that is the church, a blessing. and I will cause the shower to
come down in his season. That is just what we've been
talking about. The Lord says, there shall be
showers of blessing, and the tree of the field shall yield
her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they
shall be safe. Now, he's not just talking about
climate. He's not just talking about rainfall,
he's speaking about the gospel and the showers of blessing that
come when the gospel is preached and when Christ is lifted up.
And the church yields her increase. And the means of grace abounds
within the church. And it is then that the people
of God and the church of God is safe. The Lord sends preachers
to bring glad tidings of good things, to preserve and to protect
and to refresh and the people of God soak up the good news
of sin forgiven by the death of Jesus Christ and peace with
God because Christ has reconciled us to a holy God and has taken
away all our condemnation and carried it in his own body. and
we look to be fed and watered in our souls at the hand of God
as our Saviour is lifted up in our presence. These false teachers
offered nothing like that because they were clouds without water. And the next thing that Jude
tells us about these men is that they are trees without fruit. Now, we grow fruit trees, men
and women grow fruit trees for the fruit that we hope to harvest
from them. God placed Adam in a garden and
supplied him with every fruit that was desirable to eat and
said to him, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, That is all but one, and of course that was the only one
that Eve really desired. But these false teachers are
trees without fruit. They cumber the ground, they
take up space, and yet they contribute nothing to the good of the fellowship. Now the fruit that is sought
is the gospel of God's grace. That's what we want to hear.
That's the fruit that we want to get and possess and consume
and enjoy from our preachers, from our pastors. But these men
have no grace, nor have they any true knowledge of the gospel. where nourishment and refreshment
might have been hoped for, there is barrenness and there is disappointment. People sometimes tell me, when
I speak to folks from time to time, they sometimes tell me
that they go to church hoping to hear something for the good
of their soul. And they leave the church, they
return home, more frustrated, more hungry, and even angry in
their mind, in their soul, after the service. because they haven't
been fed, they haven't heard the Gospel, they haven't heard
about the completed work of Christ, they haven't heard about the
efficacy of shed blood, they haven't heard about the fact
that the Lord Jesus Christ has taken our sins away and reconciled
us to God. Why is that? Why have they not
heard that? I'll tell you why they haven't
aired it. Because the minister has no gospel to preach. If he had, he would preach it. If he understood, he would declare
it. Paul said, woe is me if I preach
not the gospel. I don't have anything else to
preach but Jesus Christ crucified. These men don't have that knowledge. They don't have it in their heart.
They don't have it in their soul. And when they have no truth to
dispense, they can't minister to the Lord's people. Preaching
is more than just talking. It's more than just recounting
the stories, the histories, the parables of the scripture and
making some sort of application. It is setting Christ before men
and women and lifting him up to his honour and our good by
preaching the finished work of grace. But these preachers bear
no fruit. They're twice dead, says Jude.
They have no spiritual life within themselves, and therefore they
have none to share with others. And here again, the contrast
between what the Lord's people need and what such fruitless
cumberances can supply is clear to be seen. So let us be clear,
if you are not eating, you're dying. If your soul is not growing,
then it is shriveling up and diminishing. And men and women
who are spiritually alive need regularly to consume spiritual
food and partake of spiritual fellowship. And we do this when
we pray, and we do it when we read, and we do it when we commune
with the Lord's people. But principally, principally,
we do it when we hear the gospel preached. How many times will
we go to a barren tree looking for food before we realise that
it has nothing to give us? Jude is writing to believers. He writes to those who have tasted
the mercy, the peace, and the love of God, because they've
been sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and
called. And such people have an appetite
that can only be satisfied with, let me call it, angel food. That is the food that God's preachers,
that God's messengers, that God's angels bring for our souls. When the Lord brings an individual
to newness of life, when he feeds us, first on the milk of the
gospel and then on the strong meat of the word of God. When
the Lord makes us alive and gives us an appetite, he creates the
appetite and then he supplies the required nourishment. So
David can say, when the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Why? Because he leads them to
the green pastures, because he leads them beside the still waters.
And Jude is saying precisely this. You don't go to the pastures
where there's no growth. You don't go to the places where
there's no water. We follow the Lord and the Lord
supplies our need. Jude concludes this reference
to the barren trees by saying, they shall be plucked up by the
roots. Being empty of fruit, they will
be discarded and destroyed. They will be separated from the
church. They will be cast into the fire
that is inextinguishable. They will be mere fuel for the
fires of hell. And what weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth there will be when these false teachers
are exposed for the hypocrites and the deviants that they are.
The Lord has declared in Matthew 7, verse 19, every tree that
bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the
fire. And it will come to pass. It
will come to pass. Jude continues, he's got another
metaphor here, he's got another way of describing these false
teachers. He says, they're raging, foaming
waves. These metaphors are really something
else. I imagine, when I read this,
I imagine noise, raging, foaming waves. I imagine restlessness. and a whole lot of churning up
activity that ultimately amounts to nothing. And I'm not saying
that crashing waves can't be destructive. They certainly can
be destructive. I like to go and watch the big
tides on a stormy day. But for all the raging and the
foaming The waves roll in and they roll out again. The tide
can be awesome as it rises and falls. And so too, these men,
these men that are like raging, foaming waves, they can build
big empires. They can boast large congregations. They can swell up with pride
and vanity. They can look like a big tide.
the Lord has set their boundaries and he has fixed their place
and he tells them how far they can go and no further. And foam
I've never seen as much foam at the coast as I've seen here
where we live. Apparently, it's a sign of good,
healthy water, that there's lots of nutrients in it, but be that
as it may, the foam can gather in great drifts. But then it just dries out and
disappears in a couple of hours. and neither noise of the waves
nor the foam endures any length of time. So it is with these
false teachers. Nothing they produce endures. Theirs is a legacy of wood, hay,
and stubble that is to be consumed. Paul talks about that in Corinthians. There's no gold, silver, or precious
stones amongst it. And the sea is restless and turbulent. It churns up debris. It deposits
waste on the beach. And so these false teachers,
they churn up rubbish doctrine and they foam out, they spew
out to their own shame, these endless things that they know
nothing about. It is a powerful metaphor indeed
that Jude has here supplied. And what is the contrast of the
true preacher? Well, the Lord leads his sheep
beside the still waters, not where these waves are crashing
and the foam is spewing, but beside the still waters. He brings
us into the deep experiences of the Spirit, and he ministers
good things for our peace. Do you remember when the Lord
was in the boat in the midst of the sea and he calmed the
wind and the waves? The disciples wondered at what
manner of man he was that even the wind and the waves obey him. This is our Lord and Saviour.
This is our God. Are we anxious? Are we troubled? Are we distressed? False doctrine
does that to us because it makes us look to ourselves for help. Sovereign grace does the opposite. It calms our troubled hearts.
Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. Sovereign grace eases our conscience. It brings us peace and rest. If we truly trust in the Lord,
He will calm the storms of our lives. as much as give us hope
of eternal life. What we were speaking about with
David is true in the ministry of Jude as well. Sovereign grace,
the true gospel, the work of Christ properly understood is
what these men were challenging and that is why they cause so
much turbulence and distress amongst the people of God. The
last thing Jude says, and with this we're done, is that they
are wandering stars. And again, we marvel at Jude's
perception here. Of course, it is spirit-inspired. But these men have no fixed orbit. They have no regular course.
They have nothing dependable in them. They flash for a moment
like a shooting star and then burn up in the atmosphere. or
like a meteor they disintegrate as they approach the sun and
then they're gone. There's nothing solid, there's
nothing lasting, there's nothing reliable, there's nothing enduring
in the false doctrines of this world. And there is nothing dependable
in those who preach false doctrine. If these people can come to our
churches with their false doctrines, And Jude says, to these is reserved
the blackness of darkness forever. What a potent phrase that is.
A dreadful, miserable prospect awaits those who do not preach
the true gospel and who do not know Christ of the gospel. It is reserved for them. It's
already in place. It's already sorted out. They've
got their reservation. It's all under control. The timing
is perfect. The end is assured. You know,
we sometimes worry about these things and we think, why is the
Lord not dealing with this? Why is this happening? What is
going on here? Why are we so few? Why is the
gospel so much perverted? Why is it we can hardly find
anyone these days that will preach the gospel of sovereign grace
with clarity, distinctiveness and emphasis? Where is this ministry
today? and we get worried and anxious.
Let me say, throughout the history of the church, there are those
who have tried to exploit and take advantage of the Lord's
little flock for their personal gain. It is continuing yet today,
and the Lord knows who they are, he knows where they are, and
he has appointed their time of judgment. I say this often, let
me repeat it. We are not more jealous for the
well-being of Christ's church than is our Saviour. He loves
his bride and he will deliver her and protect her. He will
safeguard and commit to her in every way for every need. True
preachers are not stars. They are not celebrities. They
are not luminaries. They are servants, they are ministers,
and they are messengers of the word. They are sent with a message
to deliver, and they serve their purpose when they do it with
faithfulness, with clarity, and with care. True ministers are tied to their
course and they follow what they've learned from Christ. True ministers
do not make things up or devise cunning fables. They preach the
truth. They preach Jesus Christ crucified
according to the Scriptures. And by grace, God the Holy Spirit
applies that message to our souls. May the Lord give us such a faithful
ministry. Amen.